Process

TAXODIUM begins in earnest.

Wekiva Reflections oil on canvas 60x40 private collection

I’m not sure what it is about wetlands. The dark. The mystery. The smells. The sublime murky beauty. All of these. Regardless, I have always been drawn to that place where land and water meet. Swamps, rivers, streams, creeks, marshes.

They are ever changing. Influenced by wind, tides, storms, floods. Never expect the return visit to be the same.

This infatuation led me to this capstone exhibition/body of work I’m calling TAXODIUM. Here is a repeat of my statement regarding this work:

TAXODIUM

“A cypress doesn’t apologize for its knees.” Jim Draper

The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) stands in black water, knees rising like ancient knuckles, trunks thickening with age. Needles emerge neon green in spring, turn rust in fall, and drift into the black water. Then the cycle repeats, beginning again with spring-green.

The cypress does not ask permission. It does not apologize for thriving. Its knobby knees rise from the muck and goo. It simply obeys the oldest command: be fruitful and multiply.

I adopt the term TAXODIUM as a moniker for a body of work I am developing. Projections for the work will include, but will not be limited to, an exhibition at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville,Florida. This exhibition will open in May of 2028 and run into September (exact dates are yet to be determined).

Various other parts will be explored and added as I work through related concepts.

TAXODIUM is not a celebration of trees. It is an act of observation. It is the verbalized manifestation of an idea, a natural statement, and perhaps a visual manifesto. This tribute is not necessarily to this singular species but moreover to the concepts this particular species illustrates. It also celebrates thetopography TAXODIUM prefers and the other species occupying those domains.

Through TAXODIUM, I refuse the lie of hierarchy. There is no “good” species or “bad”species. No native hero, no invasive villain. Only relationships and the consequences that flow from them.

Throughout this body of work—the paintings, videos, sounds, photographs, and the words that accompany—the charge is not to preach. The content is charged to witness.

The episodes watch gnarly knees hold eroding soil. They memorialize trunks standing fast against storms and time. They describe canopies shifting from green to rust to green again.

They chronicle the activities of other species, including our own (Homo sapiens), as they busy themselves in the slosh and wiggle of tannic backwater.

TAXODIUM is crafted through the filter of Radical Naturalism. This philosophical stance demands aggressive, all-encompassing observation. It champions empirical evidence over ancient superstition. It celebrates direct experience over transcendental illusion. It states emphatically that nature is not elsewhere; we are fully implicated in it. We participate in it biologically, ecologically, historically.

The term “radical” insists on roots: causes over appearances, material conditions over ideals, structures over symbols.

TAXODIUM is protest and affirmation at once. Protest against the impulse to vilify what will not submit. Affirmation that life keeps moving toward fullness even when we draw lines, build dams, spray poisons, call things weeds or invaders. The cypress does not care about our labels. It keeps growing. It keeps feeding. It keeps healing the bare spots we made. Above all else, it keeps thriving.

In TAXODIUM, I choose to watch. I choose to meet the cypress neither as enemy nor ornament, but as a willing partner. I plan to illustrate that it is part of the same command that runs through everything alive: be fruitful and multiply.

This statement is liquid. It is growing. Changing. Evolving. Like the cypress itself. Like the swamp. Like me.

During the past six months I have spent time thinking, working and developing this idea. Now, with the exhibition a few short years away I am at work to see this vision manifest.

I am setting up a camera in the studio. Creating volumes of back story. Combing archives for kernels and nuggets of inspiration from the past.

I plan on keeping a certain amount of my work open and free on Substack but will put some of the work behind a paywall. This is for those trusted and true souls who have supported me in this endeavor. Paid subscribers will get access to process.

Your support is critical to this project. I consider all those who visit the site to be participants. Paid subscribers help keep the work going.

During the next few weeks I will have a tighter schedule of working and posting. Join in. Your words of encouragement mean a lot.

Thank you.

Jim